No other breed has influenced the North American
beef industry so significantly as Charolais. These white cattle have
changed beef production concepts as much or more than the original
British breeds did for the gaunt Longhorn in the American Southwest
more than a century ago.

The Charolais breed has changed the nation’s thinking regarding
efficient beef production standards. Charolais cattle have
demonstrated a definite superiority in growth ability, efficient
feedlot gains, and carcass cut-out values. Today, Charolais top all
breeds in nearly every category of performance in the records of beef
performance testing organizations.

One of the oldest of the French cattle breeds,
Charolais is considered of Jurassic origin and was developed in the
district around Charolles in
Central France
. The breed was established there and became regarded as a producer of
highly rated meat in the markets at Lyon and Villefranche in the 16th
and 17th centuries. There is also historical evidence that these white
cattle were being noticed as early as 878 AD

In 1773, after the French Revolution, Claude
Mathieu, a cattle breeder from the Charolles region, moved to the
Nevere province, taking with him his herd of Charolais. The breed
flourished there, so much in fact that the cattle were known more
widely as
Nivernais
cattle.

One of the early influential herds in the region
was started in 1840 by the Count Charles de Bouille. His selective
breeding led him to develop a herd book in 1864 at his stable at
Villars near the
village
of
Magny-Cours
. Breeders in the Charolles vicinity established a herd book in 1882
and the two merged in 1919, with the older organization taking the
records of the later group into their headquarters at Nevers, the
capital of the Nievre province.

Soon after the First World War, a young Mexican
industrialist of French name and ancestry, Jean Pugibet, brought some
of the French cattle to his ranch in
Mexico
. He had seen the Charolais during World War I and was impressed by
their appearance and productivity.

In the mid-1940s, an outbreak of Hoof and Mouth
Disease occurred in
Mexico
. As a result, a treaty between the
United States
,
Canada
and
Mexico
set up a permanent quarantine against cattle coming into any of these
countries from
Europe
or any country where the disease was known to exist.

The first Charolais came into the
United States
from
Mexico
in 1934. From that beginning, the breed grew rapidly. Wherever they
were shown, the big white cattle commanded instant attention.
Cattlemen admired both Charolais bulls and females for their muscling,
correctness, and size. They were also very impressed with their
calves. An ever-expanding demand for purebred Charolais seedstock kept
an active market for both bulls and females.Livestock producers across the country were searching for
animals that would improve their profit picture.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s the breeders
established the American Charbray Breeders Association and the
American Charolais Breeders Association, both of which limited
pedigrees to a blend of Charolais and Brahman breeding. Producers who
were utilizing other beef breed cows to produce Charolais by
compounding Charolais blood through successive generations, formed the
International Charolais Association. In 1957, the American and
International Associations merged into today’s
American-International Charolais Association (AICA).

In 1964, the Pan-American Charolais Association,
whose registrations were based on performance rather than genetic
content, merged into the AICA. And three years later, the American
Charbray Breeders Association merged with the AICA, bringing all
Charolais-based breeds in the
United States
under the fold of a single breed registry.

With the limited availability of pure Charolais
during the early years, American breeders established a
five-generation “breeding-up” program to expand the breed. This
program involved using purebred Charolais bulls for five consecutive
generations to produce a 31/32 Charolais animal. Geneticists say this
percentage is the equivalent of a purebred, containing only 3% of the
genetic material from the foundation breed.

Charolais is a naturally horned beef animal, but
through the breeding-up program, using other breeds carrying the
polled gene, polled Charolais emerged. Some of the breed’s strongest
herds and leading breeders specialize in the production of
high-performing polled Charolais.